Listers -- Here is more from the book by P.H. Reaney "A Dictionary of British Surnames". This is under the heading Huguenots (pg. 200). "Adherents to the movement of the Reformation, called Huguenots, had grown in such numbers in France that they formed a strong political party. Attempts to exterminate them failed, but continued persecution by the Roman Catholics led to civil war and laws of great severity, leading to unbridled slaughter, resulting in wholesale flight of the Protestants. The fearful tortures and butchery which took place in Flanders led to thousands of Netherlanders seeking refuge in England, and following upon the perpetration of the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572), hordes of Frenchmen came over the Channel. Enumeration in 1577 showed that in that year there were in London alone, among the unnaturalized foreigners, 2,302 Dutchmen, 1,838 Frenchmen, and 116 Italians, presumably the heads of households, and it has to be remembered that countless thousands of others, in the past, had become denizens and their children native-born Britishers. (Footnote: The Bishop of London's certificate, ([in] 1567, gives within the city 3,760 stangers, and in out-parishes, 1,091. The names and nationalities are in Lansd. MSS. x, No. 5.) The successors of Elizabeth continued to be benevolent to the exiles, and the passing of the Edict of Nantes (1598) permitting religious libery to the Protestants did not induce the foreigners to leave England, although it stayed the flow of refugees. After the annulment of the edict (1685), accompanied by a revival of the terror, harassed people in large numbers again sought asylum in England, Weiss estimating that in ten years 'prior or subsequent to the revocation 80,000 Frenchmen established themselves in England'. (Footnote: History of the French Protestant Refugees, by M.C. Weiss, transl. by H.W. Herbert, 1854, vol. i, pg. 249.) Numerous churches were built to accommodate the increasing body of religionists, and, with their own registers kept by their own countrymen, many of their native names have been preserved. The immigrants were not only Frenchmen; for instance, in the 'Diary of Abraham de la Pryme' it is recorded that in the year 1689 'there landed at Hull about six or seven thousand Dains, all stout fine men.....they liked England very well.....and many swore that they would be hanged before they would leave it'. That two of the party named STRAKER and BELLOW did not leave, the burial register of St. Mary's Beverley is witness. (Footnote: Surtees Soc., vol. liv, pgs. 16-17.) Possibly other Danish names were introduced, adding to the variety of English nomenclature. Numbers of the French refugees passed into Scotland, the French tongue being spoken in a colony in Edinburgh; and several thousands went to Ireland, and others, again, sought peace and freedom in America. (Footnote: History of Protestant Refugees in England, by J.S. Burn, 1846, pp. 19, 247.) The names of the Dutchmen, Walloons, and Frenchmen abound throughout Britain, although now often corrupted past recognition. An interesting study of the alien appellatives is provided by the records of the persons who obtained 'ex donatione regis' letters patent making them English subjects, and admitting them to citizenship. Letters of denization and Acts of Naturalization were frequently not applied for until many years after arrival in this country, by which time the alien had often acquired an English name, so that it must not be concluded that the names in these documents are those brought from their native lands." That's all for now. There is still more in this source which I will post sometime soon. Andrea (Does anyone know what the Surtees Society is/was? It's mentioned in one of the footnotes above.)